Allotment Catch Up - August

Whilst OH was away in Scotland at his cycle race, I thought I'd better pay a visit to the allotment, to see if anything needed harvesting. 

In view of the fact that there hasn't been a lot of sunshine lately, the tomatoes are taking a while to ripen up, but most other things are growing well. We tend to pick the tomatoes as they turn reddish and ripen them a bit more on the windowsill at home.

The whole site looked very full of growth compared to the previous time I'd been, which must have been a few weeks ago. Our plot looked like this:

The main things we are harvesting at the moment are beans (french and runner), cucumbers (mini and cucamelons), tomatoes, courgettes and beetroot. The sweetcorn is also doing well, but probably needs a bit more sunshine before the cobs are ready to pick. They aren't far off though.

The grape vine hanging over the fence has so many bunches of grapes on it, but they are not quite sweet enough just yet. I'm not sure if these are from our neighbour's vines or ours. Probably his, if I'm honest. He's usually okay for us to pick them, if they hang over the fence on our plot though.

Here's what I harvested on this visit. A nice little haul. Some of the cucumbers look a bit yellow, so have probably gone over a bit, but so long as they taste okay, we'll eat them. I'm freezing some of the beans and courgettes, as we can't get through them all and I'm pickling the beetroot for future use.

The only salad and vegetables I'm buying at the moment are avocados and peppers, which is saving me a bit of money each week, which is all good. I hope you're having a good growing season if you grow your own food.